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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26952925">Blue Pine Mountain</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/babe_without_the_arms/pseuds/babe_without_the_arms'>babe_without_the_arms</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Secret History of Twin Peaks - Mark Frost, Twin Peaks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Animal Death, Car Accidents, Gen, Only less cringe and less OOC this time, TBI/PTSD Albert, Yet another Gordon &amp; Albert angstfic, aka Tulpa Albert, you know the drill</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:33:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,394</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26952925</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/babe_without_the_arms/pseuds/babe_without_the_arms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Gordon and Albert return to Twin Peaks after the LPA burns down.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gordon Cole &amp; Albert Rosenfield</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Blue Pine Mountain</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>(For those of you who haven't read The Secret History: After Mr. C escaped the Black Lodge, he burned down Listening Post Alpha, the military compound where Briggs works in secret communication with Gordon and Douglas Milford.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I.</p><p>Gordon Cole is fluent in the language of the symbolic. He can read the subtle networks of meaning that lie behind seemingly unrelated phenomena. Here, the symbolism was clear. Gazing up at the scorched remains of Listening Post Alpha, he can see his life’s work mirrored back to him as a smoldering carcass of ash and blackened concrete.</p><p>He frowns in the drizzling rain, collecting clues and initial impressions. When presented with a crime that evaded all possibility of a rational motive, the symbol became the only means of conducting the investigation. To solve such a crime you must not think like a criminal; you must think like the crime. To burn down a building, you must first be a man on fire.</p><p>He pushes open the door. He high-steps over blackened wood beams and splintered rods, and weaves around the drapery of exposed wires hanging from the ceiling. Similarly he wades through constellations of psychic infrastructure: memories, dreams, reflections; small victories; enormous losses. His trenchcoat catches on a soot-covered door knob, melted beyond recognition. He winces, wiping the dust from the jacket lining with his handkerchief.</p><p>There is a charred clockface on the wall. Gordon looks at it compulsively. The hands read: 2:45. In the old detective stories the hero could determine when the crime had occurred from the time the clock had stopped ticking. Useful, but not nearly as important as using the clock to determine the type of crime that had occurred.</p><p><i>2+4+5 is 11, 1+1 is 2, 2 is the number of doubles, splitting, and separation.</i> In every person there is a faultline which, if pressed upon, will reveal subterranean rivers that have never been crossed.</p><p>The fire department had ruled this as arson. Somewhere, for someone, the house of the self had been set ablaze. In this case it would be his only lead.</p><p>II.</p><p>There’s an objectionable piece of kitsch known as a “Hula girl” bouncing on the dashboard. The car radio supplies her with constant, gray static to dance along to in the background. Something wrong with the car antenna, or maybe the dial was stuck between stations. Albert supposes Gordon wouldn't have reason to be bothered by a faulty radio, but it made for a grim place to dance the hula.</p><p>There's a jolt as the car blows through a pothole, and the shock sends the Hula girl into some sort of stroke. Albert doesn't bother to reduce his speed. He doesn't particularly care what happens to this car. If he keeps going, maybe he'll get lucky and hit another pothole, harder this time. Bust a tire, find himself stranded in the middle of the forest. Abandon the car on the road and walk off into the night. Become "one with nature" or move into a small house full of dwarves. Apparently that's the thing to do in this town. People just vanish into thin air, if Harry is to be believed. Which of course Albert does.</p><p>They never saw the flames. It took them a little over 12 hours from when Gordon got the call from Sheriff Truman to make their way from Philadelphia to the Blue Pine wilderness, and by the time they had arrived, the LPA site was a smoldering carcass of black steel and concrete. The details Albert had been able to pry out of Gordon had been few but frightening. Arson on a top security Air Force facility outside of Twin Peaks with Major Garland Briggs inside.</p><p>Harry Truman had met them there, running one hand anxiously through his hair, clutching his cowboy hat with the other, looking like he hadn’t slept in days.</p><p>
  <i>“WHERE’S AGENT COOPER?”
</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    “I don’t know. I--we can’t find him.”
</i>
  
</p><p>
 
    <i>
      “YOU CAN’T FIND HIM?”
  </i>
</p><p>
        <i>“I’m sorry, Chief. He’s gone. I tried to call you at the airport, but you had already left. The last anyone saw of him was yesterday evening… Betty Briggs says he had visited the Major at their home.”

</i>
</p><p><i>"WHAT ABOUT EARLE?"
  </i>
</p><p><i>“No sign of him, either. But we’re thinking he’s probably behind the fire. You know he had kidnapped the Major about a week before… “</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>He winds up and around another loop of the ridge. Hula girl swings to the rhythm of the turns on the road, a pendulum for road hypnosis in his peripheral vision. He checks the time: 8:21pm. He should have arrived by now. He’s tired, as people always are when they enter the dream, or when they haven't slept in a week from wondering, wondering, where their friend has gone off to this time...</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i></i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i></i>
  </i>
</p><p>He rounds another corner and has a split second glimpse of Dale Cooper standing in the road, before Albert hits him head on at 50mph.</p><p>III.</p><p>He awakens to Deputy Hawk shining a flashlight in his face though the broken window.</p><p>"... I'll be damned. Albert Rosenfield."</p><p>Albert groaned, slowly lifting his head off his chest.</p><p>"Don't get out. I've got an ambulance on the way." There was a crackling of a familiar voice over the police radio. The red and blue lights from Hawk's patrol car flash harshly in the rearview mirror.</p><p>He feels like his entire face was punched by a giant fist. As he regains the ability for complex thought he supposes that it must have been the airbags. He briefly checks his limbs for mobility--everything seemed serviceably attached. Didn't seem to be bleeding anywhere either. It was hard to believe nothing was wrong with him, that he would get out of this scot free. He scrambles for his last memories... He was driving… He was driving up Blue Pine Mountain… </p><p>He hit Dale Cooper in the middle of the road. </p><p>He fumbles for the door handle and pushes it open. He’s dimly aware of broken glass falling off his lap and onto the asphalt.</p><p>"Agent Rosenfield, stay in the car--" </p><p>"Coop… Need to see..."</p><p>He stood, turning his head left and right. There. Something lying on the road. His head was swimming, but he willed his vision to clear.</p><p>It… it was a buck. Lying about 20 feet in front of the car to the left. The back legs were visible in the headlights, along with some of its entrails spilling out of its abdomen. The thing had deer legs but that didn't mean anything. He needed to see the face to make sure. Touch it, even. He walked over to it, leaning onto a tree limb for support. </p><p>Deputy Hawk followed him over, hand stationed warily on his radio.</p><p>"Agent Rosenfield, I need you to come back to my car. You could be injured."</p><p>"Need your flashlight."</p><p>Hawk was staring at him, probably with a look of concern or bewilderment.</p><p>"The flashlight!" </p><p>Hawk handed it over wordlessly. Albert slapped it out of his palm and flashed it onto the buck's face. It lay slackjawed on the pavement with its tongue hanging out between dark, bloodied teeth. Black and lifeless eyes gazed up past his face into the trees. He should feel guilty for killing the innocent thing, but his only emotion was overwhelming relief. Those eyes were completely animal. </p><p>He dropped the flashlight and doubled over, puking. Hawk caught him by the arm to hold him steady until he could stand again. </p><p>"Okay, Rosenfield. Let's go."</p><p>IV.</p><p>Vehicular manslaughter is a crime much easier to understand than arson. Some fool is living the wrong life but can’t get out of it, and takes another poor soul out of theirs instead. It's not quite correct to say the driver had willful intent (who ever starts out willfully choosing to live a lie?), but it is necessary to take and assign responsibility all the same. Otherwise it’s all just a big game of human marbles.</p><p>Manslaughter is a bit harder to sort out, however, when the driver was someone else driving your car. Even harder when the driver was out on your errand. Harder still when the victim is a hallucinated double of a mutual friend.</p><p>Albert crashed the car into the buck. That was his fault. He was driving too quickly at night in a state of sleep deprivation. It was Gordon's fault for putting him behind the wheel on a dangerous mountain road. It was the buck's fault for crossing a road where many others like him had met their demise before, and expecting a different result. Gordon remembers the plaque in the Sheriff’s office: “The buck stopped here.” That was for damn sure.</p><p>He was, of course, very alarmed when he got the call. He cares about Albert's safety. Over the years he will come to care about Albert very much. But all things considered, it had been a relatively minor event. Nobody was dead or missing who hadn't been before. Except the animal on the road--but that didn't count. Except the double in Buckhorn, but she wasn't real. </p><p>Nobody dead who hadn't been dead before. That's what Gordon was learning to settle for these days. The bare minimum. </p><p>V. </p><p>They’re standing in the tow yard. The front end of Gordon’s car is smashed in on itself like a ruptured glass and metal chrysalis.</p><p>“I HAD THE BODY SENT TO THE LAB IN SPOKANE.”</p><p>Albert squints at the wreckage. The damage is absolutely brutal; he really has no idea how he survived it. He tries again to remember what had happened just before the accident. The split second image of Cooper hurtling towards his windshield, a literal deer in the headlights. The memory is more physical than mental, sending a painful jolt of adrenaline through his body. Rather than energizing him, each time it just leaves him feeling more numb. He really had no idea how long he had been sitting there unconscious before Hawk had found him. He can remember the slow return to wakefulness, feeling “Albert” push itself over the edge of the dark and into consciousness, like some sort of thick, primordial soup left on slow boil, finally bubbling out of the pot and onto the stove. He had seen some sort of shining white light on his inner eyelids. It must have been Hawk's flashlight. It was nothing like the "white light" that the religious nutjobs confuse for the random misfirings of their brain in near death experiences. Something colder, impersonal. A white blinding flash seen on the horizon before a clap of thunder. The feeling of the world blinking out of existence--</p><p>VI.</p><p>He awakens to Gordon waving his hand in front of his face in the tow yard. "OKAY THERE, ALBERT?"</p><p>They're still in the tow yard. Albert blinks and turns his head to look at him. He winces. Whiplash. </p><p>“... What body?”</p><p>“THE DEER, ALBERT! THE ONE YOU HIT WITH MY CAR!”</p><p>“Any particular reason why?</p><p>“I WANT YOU TO DO AN AUTOPSY.”</p><p>“... On roadkill?”</p><p>Gordon frowned at him with a look that could have been frustration or concern.</p><p>“YOU SAID YOU SAW COOPER. I WANT IT CHECKED OUT. PICTURES, THE WHOLE DEAL.”</p><p>Albert blinks at him and lights a cigarette in tacit agreement. Gordon nods, and walks over to the car to peer into the broken window. He seemed to be looking for something on the dashboard. He straightens, gazes up at the sky. Albert thinks about the accident.</p><p>"LOOK, ALBERT. I'M SORRY THIS HAPPENED."</p><p>Gordon isn't looking at him. He's squinting at some empty spot in the air. He waves his arms above his head and hops back and forth. Dancing a bizarro hula. But the strangeness of it all doesn't seem to stick with Albert. It just is what it is. </p><p>Gordon doesn't seem to expect a response either, which was just as well. Albert's world is filtered through the dull sieve of his ruminating, preoccupied thoughts. He squints at the wreckage, absentmindedly drawing on his cigarette. Why had he been driving Gordon's car in the first place? He can't remember.</p><p>VII.</p><p>He had been driving down Blue Pine Mountain when he saw the wreck on the side of the road. The headlights were still on, partially illuminating a dead deer on the shoulder. The car was empty with the engine still running. Either the driver had set off on foot or had been picked up and taken into town. Albert hoped they were ok, whoever they were. Sorry for the animal too. He’d let Lucy know when he got back to the station.</p><p>VIII.</p><p>He had been driving up Blue Pine Mountain because he was going to meet Gordon at the LPA site because he had to finish at the lab first looking at materials they had found in Windom's cabin and Gordon rode with Harry and had told him to just take his car and meet them there when he was done. He held onto it like a lifeline, repeating it to himself like he was memorizing a backstory to use undercover. Concentrating on the narrative helped him to avoid thinking about the space of unconsciousness that hung like a black flag between the collision and Hawk’s flashlight. It disturbed him that the world had kept happening while he was sitting nonexistent in Gordon’s car.</p><p>Work also helps, or so he thinks. Being told to perform an autopsy on an innocent animal he himself had killed was certainly a first. He might have seen it as a kind of punishment for totaling Gordon's car, if he thought Gordon was capable of that sort of willful cruelty. He's pretty sure Gordon is just insensitive or unaware, or too committed to the job. Either way, he can handle it. It's no more gruesome of a sight than any he's seen on an exam table. He’s just not sure what Gordon expects him to find in here. </p><p>He makes a clean slice down the abdomen and guts billow gently out onto the table. He dimly remembers Gordon telling him once about something called "haruspicy." Divination using the entrails of sacrificed animals. Another one of his “trade secrets,” Albert supposes.</p><p>He pokes around with his scalpel and hits something small and hard. There's a gold marble in the large intestine. </p><p>IX.</p><p>The years go by. In the end, the final, unfixable problem for them both was not that Gordon never apologized for his mistakes, lies, and omissions; it's that he never seemed to need a response, and this particular Albert took advantage of that.</p>
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